Pirate Party Germany

The Pirate Party Germany, commonly known as Pirates, is a political party in Germany founded in September 2006 at c-base. It states general agreement with the Swedish Piratpartiet as a party of the information society; it is part of the international movement of pirate parties and a member of the Pirate Parties International. In 2011 and 2012, fuelled by overlapping support from the international Occupy Movement, the party succeeded in attaining a high enough vote share to enter four state parliaments (Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein) and the European Parliament. However, their popularity rapidly declined thereafter and by 2017 they had no representation in any of the German state parliaments. Their one European MEP, Patrick Breyer, is in the Greens–European Free Alliance group. Together with Marcel Kolaja, Markéta Gregorová and Mikuláš Peksa from the Czech Pirate Party they build up the European Pirate Party team for the European Parliament in Brussels. According to political theorist Oskar Niedermayer, the party sees itself as part of an international movement to shape with their term of "digital revolution" which is a circumscription for the transition into information society. With their focus on freedom in the net and their fight against government regulations of this sphere, they caught the attention especially of the younger generation. Even if the network policy is the core identity of the party, it is now more than just an advocacy party of "digital natives" and characterises itself as a social-liberal-progressive. Former federal chairman Sebastian Nerz sees the party as social-liberal party of fundamental rights which among other things wants to advocate for political transparency.